Joyce Kelly at work in her Hillsdale sewing room.
REBECCA KOFFMAN/Special to The Oregonian

In the 1940s, paper dolls were a popular birthday gift among the girls at the Multnomah Grade School.

They would huddle at lunchtime to draw and cut out clothes for their dolls.

"We'd be drawing away, but the boys would step on our drawings, so we'd go to the girl's bathroom to work on our designs," recalls Joyce Kelly. "I always think of that when I walk past that bathroom now."

That would be the bathroom at what is now the Multnomah Arts Center, once the area's grade school. This weekend it's the venue for two art and gift sales. One of them is the first group show organized by the newly-formed Left Coast Artists Collective, of which Kelly is a member.

Twenty artists will sell their wares in the Left Coast Collective's Branching Out show in the arts center's gymnasium on Friday and Saturday. Their work runs the gamut from steampunk jewelry to handbound books to purses made with vintage frames and fine fabrics.

The vintage handbags are Kelly's. Her early interest in making clothes for paper dolls led to a career in the fashion industry.

Joyce Kelly at her sewing machine working on a lining for a vintage handbag. REBECCA KOFFMAN/Special to The Oregonian

She learned to sew at the age of five and by ten was making her own clothes and those of her baby sister. That is, when she wasn't roller skating or stilt walking near the grade school.

"It was a great place to grow up," she says, speaking recently from her Hillsdale living room, where she was taking a break from show preparations.

At age 40, she founded a pattern company, Patches of Joy, whose designs sold all over the world. Her first pattern, a patchwork skirt was a huge seller in the 70s

She's still working with textiles and patterns – making art quilts and gorgeous handbags using vintage frames made of lucite, bakelite, or art deco-styled metal. Some of these will be on sale at this weekend's show: "our first public endeavor," says Kelly.

The Left Coast Artists' Collective grew out of the Portland Art Collective which for five years ran it's very successful Open Doors show at the beginning of December at the Multnomah Arts Center.

When the Portland Art Collective decided to discontinue their show, and focus on other things, the Left Coast group took up the baton.

Several of the artists participating in this weekend's show belong to both groups. Jennifer Campbell, whose steampunk style jewelry has been featured on the television show, Portlandia, says that membership in artists' collectives "allows us to get out of our heads. We tend to be solitary people, but this is a way we can exchange ideas, network, inspire each other."

A completed silk bag with vintage lucite frameREBECCA KOFFMAN/Special to The Oregonian

This theme is echoed by Stephanie Brockway, who carves dolls and puppets from found wood. "Being a female wood carver can be isolating." And she adds, "it's great to see women organizing like this."

The Left Coast group is open to men, but so far its 22 members are all women.

Laurie Weiss, another member of both collectives, was looking forward to the show. She planned to sell handmade journals and copies of "Dark River of Stars," a hand-made artists' book in a limited edition of 50 signed copies. It's a collaboration between Oregon poet laureate, Paulann Petersen; printmaker, Barbara Mason; and Weiss, a bookbinder.

"There' s going to be a lot of exciting energy at the arts center this weekend," says Weiss.

Perhaps not very different from the creative energy that once drove Joyce Kelly and her friends into the girls' bathroom at the Multnomah grade school, so that they could draw clothes and inspire each other undisturbed.